


Peter and the Wolf

by barbaricyawp



Category: Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Bestiality, M/M, Multi, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-11
Updated: 2019-03-07
Packaged: 2019-09-16 10:41:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16952496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/barbaricyawp/pseuds/barbaricyawp
Summary: In which Peter Parker encounters a wolf in the woods.Basically the Twilight of SpideyVenom, but only werewolves and less subconscious Mormonism.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Peter Parker is 18 in this fic, but he is in high school. If that's too young for you, might I suggest a different fic.
> 
> This is an AU where Peter Parker moved upstate after his parents disappeared, never developed superpowers, and there are werewolves.

When the rain lets up, turning from a downpour to a fine mist that clings to ground, Peter takes a walk through the woods. It’s late fall and all the leaves have frozen off the trees. They are nearing Peter's favorite season upstate. Still no snow, though.

Just rain that rattles the bungalow. Just hail that shatters the window at night. Wind that creaks the walls. Peter isn’t a frightful person, but it's just his aunt May and him in that house. And the woods are deep and strange.

He never sleeps well when winter settles in and the nights get louder.

When he‘d first moved here, May warned him it might be like this. “People aren’t animals, Peter,” she’d told him, “They aren’t meant to live this far from civilization. You’ll need to make friends in school.” And, of course, Peter had ignored her. Peter has made all of one (1) friend since he moved upstate. That was nearly a decade ago.

He’s been thinking about convincing her to get them a dog. Something big and fluffy to sleep in his bed and protect him a night. Well, not _protect_ so much as ease his mind. Keep him company. Warm his feet. All that stuff.

As he treads through the woods, wet leaves shuffling under his boots, he thinks about what it would be like to have a dog trailing behind him now. It would flag his heels and chase the rabbits through the brush. It might sniff ahead, raise its hackles and growl at any perceived threat. Peter is considering whether he’d be the type to walk his dog on or off leash, when he hears a rustle behind him.

It’s most likely a rabbit, but some instinct turns his head towards the noise. His blood turns to ice at the sight.

A wolf. Or something like it—black, sleek, enormous—stands on the trail behind Peter. He has never seen a wolf in person before. Yes, perhaps the gray hackled back of a wolf in a zoo, or in a national geographic video, but never an honest to god wolf.

It’s not what Peter expected. The texture of its fur not so coarse as it appears in videos—the fur that lies along its back is smooth, almost oily looking. And it is big, really big. Huge. Its head comes as high as Peter’s chest. It has a narrower, longer snout than any wolf Peter has ever seen.

Perhaps it’s not a wolf at all, but something else. A coyote or a mutant fox. Do those come in black?

The wolf, or whatever it is, takes a step forward. Its eyes latch on Peter's, waiting for his response. Peter freezes, holding his breath and willing his heart to stop beating. The creature approaches. 

Now upon him, it extends its snout, entire body elongated towards Peter. Its nose, cold and wet, nudges against Peter’s hip. It snuffles, digging into the denim fabric, then lifts its front paws and knocks Peter to the ground.

He yelps, shuffles back on his elbows and heels, crab-crawling away from the beast. Growling, the wolf catches Peter’s ankle in its teeth and drags him closer. With one paw to his chest, it pins Peter to the ground. It ducks its head to press its cold nose against Peter’s neck.

Peter takes his chance. He elbows its stomach, trying to throw it off. The wolf stumbles for a moment, then immediately braces both paws on his chest, the full weight of the wolf now totally on Peter. The weight is too much for his lungs; he gasps for breath.

Snarling now, lips curled over a mouth of too many teeth, it opens its maw wide over the column of Peter's throat. Saliva drips from its incisors and Peter realizes in this instant that there is a very good chance he won’t survive this.

And what an embarrassing death that will be. Mauled to death by a wolf only yards away from his house. Once May gets over the grief of her dead nephew, she’ll never stop gloating about how right she was. Peter should have never moved into the woods.

But then, just before it bites down—a bite that would surely snap Peter’s neck—it stops. Its ears prick up, then swivel back, as if hearing something. For a moment, the wolf stands atop Peter, considering him. Then it bolts off into the woods.

Rising onto his elbow to look after it, Peter rubs the center of his chest. “What the fuck was that?”

\---

A few weeks after his parents had disappeared, when Peter was first shipped upstate to live with Aunt May, he felt an immediate call to the woods.

The woods around May’s house are dense. The trees grow narrow and tall upstate and seem to huddle together to ward off humans. When the wind blows, they all move in tandem. The kind of woods that hover in a different atmosphere than air or water. Unreal.

In those days, everything was feeling all too real to Peter. His parents had vanished and he lived with an aunt he’d only met twice. His room was different, the food was different, his life was different. This wasn’t his home. He didn’t belong here. He belonged somewhere, anywhere else.

So, one night, when everything was hushed and still from snowfall, Peter snuck out. He was just a child then, and the memory has grown faint. Peter doesn’t remember getting out of bed, doesn’t remember how he left the house. What he does remember is his bare feet over wet leaves. And a dark shadow stalking him through the trees.

He fell asleep out there, as if in a trance. When he woke up, it was in a clearing deep in the forest. The grass was frosted everywhere but in the tight circle of flattened grass around him. As if something warm had encircled Peter while he slept.

Of course, there had been a big commotion when little Peter returned home. Cop cars and crying May and worried neighbors. May had held him by the shoulder and very sternly told him to, “Never ever run off like that again.” Everyone was so relieved to see Peter safe and sound, no one questioned how he survived through the night.

Peter thinks about this sometimes, when he’s staring at the woods and doesn’t know why.

\---

“Oh, that was a werewolf,” May says, when Peter tells her about the creature in the woods. They have just finished dinner and are watching  _American Horror Story_ over dessert. Like most seasons of  _AHS,_ Peter liked the first half more than the second.

“There’s a lot of those around here,” she says, as if this is common knowledge.

“Wait, what?” Peter says. He’s got a mouth stuffed full of brownie and the crumbs spray out onto his lap.

May arches an eyebrow, unimpressed. “The woods are absolutely stuffed with werewolves around here, Peter. What are they teaching you in that school?”

“Give public high schools a break. We just finished our unit on unicorns.”

“Oh haha,” May says, waving a spoon at him; she eats her brownies warm and with a spoon. “I’m serious though. There were werewolves here before there were people.”

“Aren’t werewolves part people?”

“Semantics.”

“Essential etymology.”

May narrows her eyes at him, then beams fondly. She's not his parents, but she loves him enough for a mother and a father both. Maybe even more. Peter feels that, soaks it up like a desert succulent.

“When’d you get so smart?”

“Must be all that public high school education.”

\---

That night, Peter cracks open his laptop and heads straight to google. His knee bounces under his desk as he types it out: w-e-r-e-w-o-l-f.

He reads the Wikipedia article, but it only covers folklore. Even when he googles werewolves in his town, in this forest, it doesn’t yield many results. There’s one mention that early English colonizers wouldn’t venture into these woods for fear of werewolves, but Peter only finds it after he command-Fs “werewolves” and it’s the only mention in the article. Nothing much else shows up.

In retrospect, it seems likely that May was fucking with him.

\---

The next day, he goes to school feeling muggy and out of sorts. Last night, he went to bed secure in the knowledge that werewolves didn't exist, but he kept waking up thinking he'd heard howling outside his window.

They're nearing the end of the first semester of his senior year, so most of his peers are the same way—sluggish, muzzy, unwilling to do much more than slouch to class and sit there, drooling—but Peter has his own reasons for it.

He sees Ned the moment he turns down the hall for his locker. Makes a bee-line straight towards him.

Ned is Peter’s oldest friend, the friend that knows the most of Peter. Ned is the first sleepover friend, first “come over for dinner” friend, first “ever kissed somebody?” friend. Ned is the friend who’s been awake with Peter at three AM, playing MarioKart until their eyes streamed and they passed out on the floor. The friend he calls when he has an embarrassing question, when he needs a favor, when he needs someone to listen.

“What’s the matter with your face?” Ned says when he approaches.

“Just born with a frog in my mouth, I guess,” replies Peter.

“C’mon. That’s not what I mean, man. You look…” Ned pulls a gaunt face with his jaw hanging low, his zombie impersonation. “Didn’t sleep well?”

Peter chances a look down the hall. Flash, who only transferred to this school last year, is glaring at him from down the hall. Flash has it out for Peter, 80s movie high school bully style. Peter tucks his face behind his open locker. “What’s your first period?”

Ned shrugs. “English. It’s Free Read Friday, so I could skip.”

Good old Ned. Always up for any hint of excitement. Peter doesn’t blame him; things are boring here.

Before the bell for the first class rings, they tuck themselves in the library between the bookshelves near the back. The heater is loud back here, so they can whisper under the churning fan, undetected by the librarian.

“How long have you lived here, Ned?”

“I was born here.” Ned gives his shoulder a shove for forgetting. “Why?”

“You ever hear of—No, I guess I mean: do people around here believe in werwofisuh…” Peter trails off into a mumble, unable to say it aloud.

“Wear what?” Ned says, much too loudly.

Peter covers his mouth with both hands, freezing to see if the librarian heard. He waits to hear her heals clack against the thin carpet, but they don’t come. He sighs in relief, removes his palms from Ned's mouth slowly.

“Werewolves,” Peter hisses at him. “Do people around here believe in werewolves?”

Ned leans back and strokes his chin wisely, narrowing his eyes as if recalling an oral history distantly heard. Making a real show of thinking about it. Peter shoves his shoulder, and Ned gets on with it.

“My grandma does, but she’s kind of superstitious. 13 is an unlucky number, all that stuff. I think she believes in witches too, honestly.” Ned gives Peter a once over. The knit of his brow acknowledges that Peter is really freaked. “I could, uh, ask for you if you want?”

“No, no, it’s nothing,” Peter says, but he’s rubbing at goosebumps on his arms. He shouldn't have goosebumps. They’re right next to the heater.

Ned hums, considers this for a moment. He must realize he's out of his realm when he offers, “Wanna play Minecraft until the bell rings?”

“I’m embarrassed by how much the answer is yes.”

\---

It isn’t long before Peter is wandering into the woods again. He latches his sights on the sunset—a chilly blue that warms into lilac towards the sun—and heads due west. In the center of the forest is a great tree that hovers above the rest, a giant amongst giants. Peter will stop when he gets there.

The sun sets. The forest changes. The moon rises, and the shadows it casts form strange shapes. Those strange shapes become sentient, form a being. Peter knows immediately when he isn’t alone anymore.

“We felt you,” the darkness says, “Moving through the woods. Felt you like we heard you. Calling for us.”

Peter takes a few steps closer. He doesn’t lift his feet, rather slides them across the ground. His toes nudge tree roots, heels scrape across dirt.

“That’s it,” it encourages, “Come closer.”

A long snout, crested with jagged teeth, surfaces from the darkness. Its teeth are shockingly white against the black, and the glimmer of saliva slicking them catches the moonlight. The sight of so many teeth gives Peter pause.

Its lips curl up around its incisors, shifting as the beast speaks. “We would never hurt you, Peter Parker.”

But Peter doesn’t move. His hand is suspended out in front of him, paralyzed. When did it get there? Is it still attached to his body? Is it still under his control?

Soundlessly, the creature—the werewolf—moves forward, out of the shadow of the trees. Exposing itself for Peter. It isn’t what Peter expected, especially its eyes. He had expected the yellow glow of werewolf eyes from his google searches. Instead, they are a pale gray. Almost blue, the same warmth as blue but without the color.

Peter settles his fingers lightly over its muzzle. The werewolf’s snout is surprisingly soft, like crushed velvet. When it exhales, great plumes of steam curl from its nostrils and briefly warm Peter’s knuckles before the wetness cools them again.

Braver now, Peter sinks his cold fingers into the fur at its neck. The beast leans into his touch, then slumps to the ground. Puffs of dust bloom up around its body, deadweight on its side. For a brief moment, Peter worries that he hurt it, but then it gives a great, heaving sigh. Its tongue lolls out from its long jaw, whale-eye rolling up to watch Peter.

Peter crouches next to it, circling his palms into its belly. The fur here is thin and its pink belly shows through. There is a strange pattern here, inky black. A tattoo, Peter realizes when he squints. And this, this here is proof sure as anything else that this is a werewolf. That there is a person in there.

No, that this _is_ a person.

Disturbed, queasy to the deepest pit of his stomach, Peter leans back on his hands. The werewolf turns its head and watches him warily. It sighs and shifts back onto its stomach, paws steady against the earth.

“Come lie with us, Peter.” Its lips don't close around the right consonants, idiosyncratic to the words it speaks.

"Hey, you ever seen this really old movie? It's got wolves in it kinda like you.  _Princess_ \--never mind." Peter shakes his head, straightens to standing. “I…uh, think I should go home.”

It’s up and standing in an instant, great jaw flexing as it snarls. Peter has the time to stagger back, but that’s it. The wolf is on him. He’s knocked to the ground and the wolf follows after him, jaws enclosed around his throat. Again.

Peter hopes that at least death will be quick, but the beast doesn’t bite down. It just holds Peter to the ground like this. Its teeth don’t even break skin. Peter goes very still, waiting.

The wolf settles over him, adjusting its elbows to rest on either side of his ribcage. Its hind paws rest on Peter’s thigh, tail trailing over his knees. Peter takes a deep breath, lungs straining against the weight.

He waits, but the wolf does nothing more. It kicks its hind paw behind its ear, but once the scratch is satisfied, it doesn't move again.

Rain begins to fall, a heavy downpour that comes on suddenly. It is the worst kind of rain: freezing cold droplets that plummet heavily. Peter tucks his limbs underneath the bulk of the werewolf, finds that he’s can fit totally under it and stay warm. He tucks his face into the werewolf's chest, feels its head lower protectively over him.

“Is this why you wanted me to stay?” Peter mumbles. “Worried I’d freeze out there?”

The wolf says nothing more, might be asleep already. Peter eventually falls asleep himself, lulled by the steady hush of rain and the trees groaning in the wind.


	2. Chapter 2

When Peter awakes, the wolf is gone but the ground around him is warm. Just as he woke up as a child, all those years ago. Peter rubs his head and looks around. The woods are empty. He is totally alone again.

“Nobody here but us chickens,” he says to himself, because it’s something May would say. And that’s comforting.

“But you don’t look like a chicken,” a man’s voice says. 

Peter whips around, squints his eyes at the bare chested man who has appeared from the brush behind him. For a moment, he thinks he’s met his werewolf’s human counterpart. His heart picks up a quick staccato. Then his eyes trail over the man's stomach.

No tattoos. Just unmarked skin. Not his werewolf, not his man.

“Uh, hi there,” Peter says, standing as quickly as he can without seeming rushed. For some reason, it seems important that Peter pretend that everything is normal. Everything is fine. He's not afraid of this man. He's not.

The man lifts his nose into the cold forest air. “You’re a human,” he says. “What are you doing in these woods?”

“I live…” Peter shouldn’t tell him where he lives. “…near here. Are you a—”

He doesn’t even have time to close his mouth before the man is right in front of him. So close that Peter can feel the heat radiate off his chest. He tilts his head, smells just below Peter’s ear. The tip of his nose is cold where it brushes Peter’s throat.

“You know Eddie Brock,” he concludes, leaning back. “But you are definitely human.”

"As far as I know, yes," Peter says, because he can't help but wisecrack even when he really shouldn't.

The man frowns. Fast as a whipcrack, he backhands Peter over the face. Peter is sent flying from the blow, lands on his back and hard. The werewolf is after him in an instant, crouched over him with a hand pressed to his shoulder so Peter can't stand back up.

"We'll see how long you stay like that," the werewolf growls, "Human." And then he laughs, a terrible barking sound.

Peter is scared now, really scared. The kind of scared that only comes in the middle of the night, walking down the dark stairs into the unfamiliar black of your living room, certain that something waits for you there. The kind of scared that sits inside you, waiting until nightfall to take over and consume you. Except it’s day, and in the daylight Peter can fully see what comes for him. What comes for him is a wolf, a werewolf.

The werewolf stops laughing abruptly, the sound instantly darkening into a growl. A terrible, rolling grumble. Peter didn’t know men could make sounds like that. 

“Carlton Drake,” a voice comes from the brush.

Peter tilts his head back and startles at the sight of a new man. A broader man, more rough-looking than the first werewolf. He’s fully naked, dusted with hair and tattoos that go all the way down to—

Peter averts his eyes, blushing. He fixes them on the face of this new man. Clear blue eyes, almost colorless. These eyes are now familiar to Peter. It is with bone-deep certainty that Peter knows this man is the werewolf that slept on him last night. His heart soars up. Peter had expected a sharp-faced man with hair as dark as the wolf’s fur.

This man has fair hair, and a sweet face like a brooding angel.

“Speak of the devil,” Drake says to this tattooed man. He lays a hand on Peter’s shoulder. His chest and arms are puffed up to his biggest size, but he still cuts a slimmer figure than the other werewolf. “I was just talking to your little friend here.”

The man, Eddie Brock, if the devil has a name, coughs. Just coughs. And Drake’s hand flinches off Peter’s shoulder, clearly frightened. Eddie Brock is younger than Drake, closer to Peter’s age, but he’s broader. His shoulders are laden with muscles that Drake doesn’t have.

All Brock has to do is curl his lip and say, "Leave. Now." and he’s sent Drake scampering into the forest. Drake falls, once, and runs on his hands and feet until he can get back upright again. Until he's disappeared into the trees.

Peter exhales shakily, feeling weak in the limbs. Brock watches him rise, and the traces of fury melt from his face. He smiles, and the sweet curl of his mouth transforms his entire face. He’s got a nice face and a self-deprecating grin.

In his chest, Peter's heart gives a painful lurch.

“If he hurt you,” Brock says pleasantly, “I’ll bring you his head.”

Peter laughs and rubs the back of his neck just so he can duck his head. A flush is rising over his cheeks that he doesn’t want Brock to see.

“He didn’t hurt me. Just…smelled me. Which I guess is weird in its own right, but not painful." Peter is yammering, trying to get to what he really wants to say. "So, I’m guessing he’s a werewolf like you.”

This seems to genuinely surprise Brock. His expression sharpens, then smooths into a neutral poker face. “A werewolf?”

Peter taps below his own ribcage, mirroring where Brock has a dark swirl of ink. “Your tattoo. I recognize it.”

Brock presses a hand to cover the tattoo, as if this is the part of his naked body that needs concealing. He rubs his thumb over it, where Peter rubbed the werewolf’s belly. For a moment, he’s lost in thought, then his eyes clear and he looks at Peter directly.

“I’m Eddie,” he says, extending his hand.

Peter takes it with a disbelieving smile. “Peter. And this is the first time I’ve shook hands with a totally naked guy.”

“Oh,” Eddie looks down at himself as if he’s forgotten that he was completely nude. In the woods. During winter. “Sorry about that. We’ll, uh…we’ll see you around.”

Eddie backtracks, eyes still on Peter as if _he_ is the mythical creature, until he turns to disappear into the woods.

It isn’t until Peter is alone that he asks himself, “Who the fuck is _we_?”

 

\---

 

“Wait, so you’re telling me that you saw Eddie Brock? Like, actually Eddie Brock.”

“Talked to him, actually. And, uh, remind me why that is important?”

Peter and Ned are sitting in the farthest corner of the cafeteria, at the very end of a long, empty table. When Peter told Ned he had important updates, Ned insisted that they talk here. _No one will listen to two nerds in the cafeteria, Peter._ And Peter would have to agree. 

Ned sighs. “You don’t remember him?

Peter shakes his head.

“Eddie Brock dropped out of school his Senior year, when were Freshmen. He was kind of a big, stocky guy." Ned holds his slightly bent elbows out, as if he's much bigger than he is. "Wore one of those jackets with a fleece collar, like, constantly.”

Peter thinks back to his Freshman year. He was a skinnier, shier kid. Ned really was his only friend back then; Peter kept mostly to himself. Though, it doesn't surprise him that Ned remembers him so vividly. Ned knows everybody, talks to everybody.

“I don’t remember him,” Peter admits.

“He almost never came to school, and even when he did he never came to class,” Ned explains. “He was in my choir class. Showed up for attendance, but never stayed to sing.”

Peter shakes his head. “Really, I’d never seen the guy before in my life, Ned.”

Ned nods, but he looks uncomfortable. He’s shifting around like he does when he’s keeping something from Peter. Peter kicks him under the table.

“What? What is it?”

“I shouldn’t say it, it's not a nice rumor, but…” Ned lowers his voice. “I’ve heard that he attacked somebody. Another student.”

“Who?”

“Dunno. I’ve heard different versions of the rumor where he's attacked just about everybody. But most people say it was Flash.”

“Flash?” Peter looks down the cafeteria to where Flash sits with a throng of his friends. All the coolest kids in this admittedly lame school sit together. They laugh in a chorus over something Flash has said. Their laughter is nearly barking. Peter suppresses a shiver.

Still, he doesn’t quite believe it.

“Nah,” he says, “A guy like Flash would file a lawsuit or something, and then we all would hear about it for years.”

“Yeah,” Ned says. His eyes are on Flash and his pack, too. “Maybe.”

 

\---

 

When Peter wakes up the next morning, it’s to a headache and the quivery empty feeling of not having slept or ate enough. He ambles down to the kitchen in this haze. The floors of his house are cold, and he heads to the door to stuff his freezing feet into some boots. As soon as he approaches, the mail slot jostles. Something has bumped the door.

Ice spreads under his skin. Quietly, Peter opens his eye to the peephole to see…nothing. Just the trees crisscrossing over the morning fog.

Though he half suspects something will spring out at him, Peter opens the door to look out. There, on the porch, lay three fat dead rabbits.

An offering.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I don't usually make y'all wait so long for such short chapters, so I apologize. And thank you for your patience. <3


	3. Chapter 3

After the rabbits on his doorstep, things quiet down a little. Snow falls in a thick, heavy blanket over the town, and Peter only braves the outdoors to trudge to school. He goes to school and passes his Spanish test. He goes to school and life is quiet. Normal.

All the while, Peter has infrequent, but consistent nightmares about shadows. Strange, dark shapes between the trees. More than once he wakes up in a start thinking that something is hovering over him, and nothing is ever there. Nothing has come for him, nothing from the trees like ominous giants waiting outside his house.

Peter wants to venture into the woods, craves it even, but abstains.

Ned's rumors ring in his ears. Maybe it's boredom, Peter could just be itching with restlessness, but he can't get them out of his head. He goes to school and keeps an eye trained on Flash. Both eyes. 

It would help if Peter knew what he was looking for, but he can’t exactly just look up “werewolf behavioral habits” on EBSCO. His biology teacher can’t guide him towards a specific section of the library. There’s no WebMD for lycanthropy. _If you have any of the following symptoms, you might be a werewolf…_  
  
Peter just has to guess. 

Flash doesn’t act in a way that seems particularly wolfy, but Peter doesn’t know what he’s looking for. He lingers around him in the halls, seeing if he has the same loping gait as Eddie and Drake. If he has any of his gestures that ring canine. If he does anything...inhuman.

He doesn’t.

By the end of the week, because Peter is terrible at keeping secrets, Flash notices Peter’s sudden attention. It’s in the parking lot after classes. The winter air is freezing cold and the students march out into the parking lot in a line. A few forge their own direct paths to their cars, but the snow is so deep, most prefer to follow in each other's footprints.

Flash is among those making new tracks towards his Audi. Peter trails closely after him, watching his posture. He's ducking against the bluster of snow, almost like a wolf with its ears tucked back and head low. Flash whips around so fast, Peter almost runs into him.

“Why are you following me?” Flash’s face is a portrait of mockery, his mouth drawn into a sneer. “Got a crush, Penis Parker?”

Peter feels his cheeks heat, but his tongue forms around a quip without needing the help of his brain. “Seems like _you’re_ the one with a crush. You’re always bringing up my penis.”

The eruption of noise around them surprises Peter. It seems like everyone within earshot is howling with laughter. The entire parking lot is whooping over how good Peter got Flash. Peter smiles, just for an instant—and definitely not to mock Flash further—but it’s enough to set Flash off.

In an instant, Peter is flat on his back. His skull cracks against the concrete, thankfully cushioned with snow, and everything is buzzy and hushed. He’s stunned, too stunned for a moment to realize what’s happening. Flash hits him with a closed fist over his face. There's not enough conviction in the strike to fully classify it as a punch.

It must hurt his knuckles because he switches tact instantly. Flash’s hands squeeze down on Peter’s throat. Peter can just barely wheeze through the pressure. He's in shock, has never been held to the ground by his throat before. A deep, irrational part of him is embarrassed; there's lots of other people around. Perhaps this is what Flash wanted, to embarrass Peter the way he's been embarrassed.

“Dude, get off of him,” somebody says. 

But Flash isn’t listening. Flash is muttering down to Peter, a long senseless stream of words: “Don’t you ever, _ever!_ You don’t know what you’re…You don't know what I'm...Don’t you ever!”

Flash presses down harder, and now Peter really can’t breathe. He struggles, grasps at Flash’s wrists to push him off. It doesn’t work. His vision goes hazy and dark. He's scared, the kind of scared that paralyzes him.

“I’m getting a fucking teacher,” somebody says, a warning. There’s a tremble in that voice, as if they’re hoping this is enough to make Flash stop.

But they needn’t bother.

It’s all a blur, but Flash is suddenly lifted off of Peter. Not lifted. _Thrown._ Peter lurches forward, gasping for breath and holding his bruised throat. His vision clears and he sees that Flash is slumped against the tire of a red pickup truck. And then Peter looks up.

“Eddie?”

Eddie Brock isn’t facing Peter—all his attention, and _fury_ , is angled towards Flash—but Peter can recognize the broad of his back. The parking lot has gone hushed at his arrival, the other students scattering out of fear. But all Peter feels is relief.

Well, relief and the cold wet snow melting into his jeans.

Eddie glances back at Peter and manages a faint, strained smile before he advances towards Flash. He's handsome today, and fully clothed: bulky carhartt coat and work boots. Peter's heart squeezes.

“What the hell,” Eddie says to Flash in a low growl, “Do you think you’re doing?”

“Mr. Brock, you don’t understand,” Flash tries to reason with him. “He was—”

“You don’t touch him. Nobody touches him. Understand?" Eddie leans in low over Flash. "Nobody. Touches. Peter."

Peter can’t see the look on Eddie’s face, but the horror on Flash’s tells him everything he needs to know. When he glances around the parking lot, they are the only three left here. The other students have vanished. Ned wasn't kidding about Eddie Brock's reputation in town.

“Okay, okay. I’m _sorry._ ”

“Not yet you aren’t.”

Eddie kicks the tire behind Flash’s head. Hard. Flash cowers, tries to cover his head in his arms. But Eddie doesn’t seem interested anymore, at least not interested enough to punish him further. He turns to Peter and offers his hand.

“Let’s get you home. Did you drive?”  
  
Peter shakes his head.

“Alright. Let’s walk then.” 

\---

  

It should be no surprise to Peter that Eddie knows where Peter’s house is. The walk there is cold, especially with Peter in his wet clothes, and the wind isn't doing them any favors. Eddie seems unperturbed though. When Peter's teeth begin to chatter, Eddie unzips his carhartt and drops it around Peter's shoulders. The coat is heavy, still warm from Eddie's body.  
  
When they finally arrive, Eddie balks at the door, but Peter ushers him in. Aunt May won’t be home for another few hours. They've got the house to themselves.  
  
Eddie skulks around as if he is in a museum full of curios. Everything is up for observation from him. Eddie turns to smirk at Peter when he encounters a cross-stitch in the living room that reads, "FEMINIST AS FUCK."

Peter shrugs. "My aunt is feminist as fuck."

Eddie laughs and shakes his head. "May I see your bedroom?"

Weird request. Really forward, this guy. But Peter's getting the idea that werewolves have a different social code. One that doesn't always accommodate for personal space or boundaries. Peter lets Eddie look around his bedroom while he stuffs himself into his shallow closet to get changed. As he closes the shuttered door, he watches Eddie considering his posters. In the dark, wrestling out of his wet clothes, Peter is struck by the sheer strangeness of Eddie Brock in his bedroom.

Inside the closet is tighter than Peter expected. In order to get his shirt off, he has to keep one elbow tucked in tight while the other arm extends towards the ceiling. He listens for Eddie while he peels out of his clothes, but there's not even a whisper. If Peter couldn't see his shadow moving between the wooden slats of his closet door, he wouldn't know he was out there at all. His body is just a silent, vague shape shifting back and forth.

"So," Peter calls through the door, leaning against a rack of hoodies to get his sweats on, "How do you know Flash?"

"Hm?"  
  
"Back at school. Flash called you 'Mr. Brock,' right?"

Eddie hums. "Most people know each other around here."

"I didn't know you _._ "

"True," Eddie says, tone warm. "But we knew you."

Peter shivers. He loses his balance and tips over into the door, knocking his forehead. Very smooth.  
  
"Okay in there?" Eddie sounds amused. Peter doesn't care for  _that_ very much.

"Fine." He twists the knob and spills out into his bedroom. His hair is hectic, fluffed up by several collars pulled over it. Peter tries to shake his hand through it to calm it down, but can see in Eddie's delighted expression that he's not very successful.

"Looking good."

"Shut up."

Eddie shrugs and gravitates towards Peter's desk. He seems to be particularly fascinated with the jumble of disassembled electronics scattered over its surface. Peter watches him, breath held, until Eddie nods. Approving.

“Are you okay?” Eddie asks now, looking over him. “Did he hurt you?” 

Peter rubs at his throat again. The collar of his Harvard sweatshirt covers most of the bruise. He'll have to explain this to May tonight over dinner. He's not super psyched for that conversation.

“I’m fine. My fault for provoking him.”

Eddie bobs his head in semi-agreement and sits on the edge of Peter’s unmade bed. “Why did you?”

“I didn’t mean to, really. I was just sort of…following him.”

Eddie lofts a brow, smirks. But it's not a nice smirk like when he saw May's cross-stitch. It's a smirk too wide, almost mocking. “Got a crush?”

As if he's been rudely dunked into the sewers, Peter's face pulls in revulsion. “No, no! Not… _no!_  No. I just thought, he was—”

It’s too embarrassing to admit to Eddie. Peter shrugs and takes a seat in the swivel chair at his desk. He pushes his socked toes into the carpet and swings the chair from side to side. Eddie watches quietly, satisfied to just observe.

“Can I ask you something?” Peter says after a stretch.

“Sure.” 

“In the movies, werewolves are turned when they’re bitten. But you don’t have any…”

“Bite marks?” Eddie finishes.

Peter nods.

“Come sit next to me,” Eddie says and pats Peter’s bed, as if it is his own.

Peter comes nonetheless, happy to be called. “So, you’re not bitten?”

“It’s more ritualistic than that, “ Eddie says, his voice going low and careful. "It's a communion, of sorts."

The sound of his voice transforms Peter’s bedroom. It's as if Peter is young again and just arrived to his aunt May's house. The first time he peered into this room, it seemed strange to him. Foreboding, even.

“When the time is right and the moon is full,” Eddie continues, “We set out into the forest to call for our kin.”

“Your kin?” 

“The cubs of the ancient gods. The lupine spirits that roam these woods freely. Lycanthropy is a gift from the moon to these lands.” He says this with uncharacteristic seriousness, as if it’s been rehearsed. Then, he gives a self-conscious chuckle and shrugs up his shoulders. “At least that’s what I was told.”

“By whom? Who told you?"

"Peter, I--"

"Another werewolf?”

Eddie's expression slams shut. “We’re tired of talking.”

Fur, slick and oil-black, sprouts abruptly over his body. A great maw of fangs closes around his head, the wolf swallowing him whole. Peter gasps and leans back; as a wolf, Eddie is so large that he drips off the bed. His haunches curl around the edges of the mattress, claws sinking in.

Like a rabbit spotted by a raptor, Peter goes still. Fear runs hot and cold under his skin. The wolf scents it instantly and ruts its head against Peter’s thigh. It makes a low, inhuman sound. Almost a whine.

"Hey," Peter says. With a shaking hand, he strokes over the wolf's fur.

“Don’t take it personally,” the wolf conveys to Peter, mouth unmoving. “Eddie still resents his turning.”

Peter can’t help but ask, “What happened? Was he hurt?” And then, because his mouth is only a dam against the flood, he continues, “How does a human become a werewolf? Are they always a werewolf, just not, you know, the _wolf_ part? What calls them to the woods?”

The hair on Peter’s arms has risen, all the way up to his shoulders. He tucks his knees against his chest.

The beast grumbles, a wet crackle in the back of its throat. “That’s not my story tell, little one. Ask when we’re closer to the full moon.”

Peter sighs and wraps his arms around his knees. He's starting to feel a little jerked around. “So, are all werewolf topics off limits? You wanna talk about _Game of Thrones_ or something? Or will the dire wolves be cutting it too close?”

“No. Just this one is off limits,” the wolf says, glazing over Peter’s peevish tone. “You are welcome to ask other questions of us.”

“So there is an us,” Peter clarifies. “You and Eddie are separate beings?”

“Yes and no. We are both the same and distinct.” The wolf pauses. “But we’ll never be separated again.”

It has begun to circle Peter, slowly stalking him. The bed creaks, unused to the weight. At first, Peter swivels his head around to track it, but quickly becomes too dizzy. Eventually, the wolf settles down around him, a warm circle of black fur. 

“Sounds like a riddle,” Peter says, skimming his hand over its spine.

“Sometimes it is,” the wolf agrees. “All relationships are, in one way or another.”

“Huh,” Peter says. “Was there a _you_ before him?”

“Yes,” the wolf says and butts its head into Peter’s palm. “But I was not the same before Eddie. And he was not the same before me.”

Peter scritches his nail behind its ear. He's no longer cold, finally. Any ice left under his skin has melted in the warm enclosure of their body--the wolf's body, and also Eddie's. Peter's hand roves lower, over the wolf's chest. There are tattoos there, if Peter digs his fingers deep enough into the its thick fur. Those are Eddie's tattoos, under the wolf's fur. 

He rests his head against the wolf's neck. With a great sigh, it leans against him then drops its head over Peter's lap. The weight of its head is a comfort over Peter's thighs, warm and heavy. Peter finds his eyes beginning to droop.

“What were you before him?”

“Incomplete,” the wolf responds.

And Peter decides its best to leave it at that. "You know," he says, "I always wanted a dog."

The fur along the wolf's spine rises in hackles. It growls, a sound that shocks up Peter's spine, but its tail still thumps against the mattress. "We're not a pet."

"I know," Peter says, and the O in 'know' becomes a wide-mouthed yawn that blooms in the back of Peter's throat. "I think I just mean I was lonely. I'm not from here, you know. I'm from the city."

The wolf hums and Peter can feel the rumble of its throat against his hip. "We know."  
  
Peter wants to ask how they knew, but his brain has separated from his body. He's asleep within moments. This time when he sleeps, he doesn't dream.

 

\---

 

Peter wakes up to sunlight in the warm enclosure of the wolf's body. Its breathing is slow, as if asleep, but the moment Peter stirs, the wolf is standing and stretching out its spine. Without speaking, the wolf gives its body a great shake. Fur flies everywhere, drifting like snow in the morning sun. The wolf keeps shaking off fur until it's all gone, and Eddie emerges.

"Sleep okay?" he asks Peter.

Peter nods, trying to brush wolf fur from his sweatpants and failing. It'll be embedded in the fabric until he washes them. Same with his sheets. "Are you headed out already?"

Eddie nods. He finds his carhartt thrown over Peter's desk chair and shoulders it. "I actually came by the school yesterday to talk to you. I'm going out of town for a few weeks."

Thinking of Drake and their encounter in the woods, Peter pales instantly. "But what about--"

Eddie raises a palm, instantly silencing him. "The other werewolves won't bother you." He stops, brow furrowed in deep thought. Eddie's lips move soundlessly, as if talking to himself internally. "They'll be similarly indisposed."

"Jeez, you make it sound like we're in the Victorian era." Peter's nose wrinkles. "What's that even supposed to mean?"

Eddie leans over and kisses the bridge of his nose. "Don't go into the woods. I'll be back in a week."

"I  _live_ in the woods. And why wouldn't I go into them if the other werewolves are..." Peter throws up double finger quotes. "... _indisposed?_ Shouldn't I be safe? Where are you going for a whole week anyway?"

Eddie laughs and opens the window and a bluster of cold air rushes into the room. "You are a curious one, aren't you? You ever consider a career in investigative journalism?" He asks it like a genuine question, but doesn't give Peter a chance to respond. Eddie leaps out the second-story window and, just before he lands, changes into the wolf. When he hits the ground, he hits it running, and bounds off into the dense trees.

Peter is getting fucking sick of werewolves. He's almost glad to see Eddie go. Almost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, I either post five chapters in a week, or it takes me two months to update. There's no in between, and I'm sorry. Thanks for your patience. I'll see y'all in June. Or tomorrow.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm concerned that this chapter could be potentially triggering. See notes at the end for synopsis and trigger warnings!!
> 
> Going forward, it's worth noting that this is a werewolf fic, and thus there's an inevitable tinge of bestiality. I've tagged it as such, just to be sure.

Peter’s immediate hunch is that Eddie is going away for the full moon. It would make good sense and explain why Peter wasn’t allowed into the woods while he's away. But when he checks the calendar, the full moon has already passed. It’ll be another few weeks until the next one.

Weird.

For the first few days of Eddie’s absence, he stays away from the woods. Just as requested. On Monday, a snowstorm hits the town and the school has to close due to inclement weather. Ned (and presumably every other kid in their district) is ecstatic. Peter, however, is in a terrible mood. He wanted to see if Flash would be in attendance. The bad mood persists even when Ned comes over to play _Injustice 2_.

“Could be worse,” Ned says when Peter explains his mood. His eyes are still on the screen as they talk. Ned is playing as Wonder Woman and is wondrously beating Peter’s Superman into the ground. “We could be in school and he could be there and then you’d have nothing to obsess over.”

“I’m not obsessed,” Peter insists. “I’m just…bothered.”

“More like hot and bothered for Eddie Brock.” Ned chooses that moment to his special move and evaporates Peter’s health bar.

Rather than further souring his mood, losing just makes Peter laugh. He tosses his controller onto the coffee table, kicking his feet up with it. “Hate to say it, but you’re kind of a bad friend, you know that?” 

“You got it all wrong; I’m the best friend. _Your_ best friend.”

“Can’t argue with that one.”

Instead of responding, Ned sizes Peter up. He looks over him and nods once. Whatever he finds in Peter makes Ned grin widely.

Peter's not having any of it. He socks Ned in the arm. "What?"

Ned shrugs and advances back to the game menu. He scrolls around idly for a new character, still grinning. "Eddie Brock is pretty good looking, isn't he?"

Peter's face heats. "Shut  _up,_ Ned."

Ned laughs. The guy has no mercy. Still giggling to himself, he selects The Flash as his next fighter, and Peter shoves him off the couch.

 

\---

 

Peter knows it’s a dream, and somehow that makes it better. 

In this dream, Eddie has his hand pressed to Peter’s stomach. Fingers spread wide, blunt nails digging pink lines into his skin. His chest against Peter's back is a hot cradle of muscle. He shifts his hand lower, finds the bulge of his cock inside Peter.

Peter whines and shifts. At once, he wants more and doesn’t think he could bear it.

Eddie groans then, low and wet in Peter’s ear. The sound sends liquid heat trickling down into the pit of Peter's belly. “There you are,” Eddie hums, approving. “My sweet thing. Little pup. How’s that feel?” 

Peter feels full to the brim. As if there isn’t even room for the air it takes to speak. He just nods. Grasps at Eddie’s wrist, holding it tight like a lifeline, and nods.

Eddie withdraws, and Peter thrashes for him, wanting him back. He laughs, a dark chuckle that rolls like velvet over Peter’s spine.

“Talk to me,” he says with exaggerated patience, sinking into Peter again. “Tell me how it feels.”

“Full,” Peter gasps. He shifts up on his toes and then rocks back down to his heels. When he tilts his head back, the chest and throat there are thickly furred. Peter turns to rub his cheek against the down. He smells dog.

“Good full?”

“I love it,” Peter sighs.

“We know,” the wolf replies.

 

\---

 

Peter wakes up breathless, shaking at all his joints. Flushed and sweating all over, he's totally soaked the bed. Outside, the tree at the center of the forest just looms. Silent. Massive. He knows what the dream means, he knows what calls for him.

 

\---

 

Tuesday rolls around and Peter awakes to find a note taped to the outside of the window. The scrawl there is barely legible, but Peter can make out the single word with no problem. It simply reads: _BEHAVE._  

Peter crumples up the note and tosses it out the window, furious. The note wasn’t signed, but he knows it’s from Eddie. Knows that Eddie expects him to sit quietly on his hands and _BEHAVE_ until he returns. That’s some real bullshit. Eddie's going to hear about that  _thoroughly_ when he gets back from...whatever he's doing.

Flash isn’t at school today, and his absence significantly lifts Peter’s mood. He takes it as a sure sign that he’s not totally human. Several students say they're sorry about what happened on Friday, and Peter brushes each of them off. At lunch, he’s floating on cloud nine. He drifts into the cafeteria and slides into his bench seat next to Ned.

“No Flash today,” Peter says, pleased. “I was thinking about going into the woo—” Ned’s bewildered expression stops Peter in his tracks. “What?”

“He was suspended, Peter. Maybe even expelled.”

Peter dumps his head onto the cafeteria table. It’s slightly damp with the sanitizer the janitor wipes the tables with before and after lunch. He’s going to smell like discount Clorox for the rest of the day.

“Nobody told you?” Ned says, none too gently because it’s Ned. "Jeez, man. You might need more friends."

Peter has all the friends he wants. “Nope. Nobody told me what?” 

“Well," Ned says reasonably, "You don’t usually get to come back to school after you choke somebody out in the parking lot.”

“Flash didn’t choke me out,” Peter mumbles into the fold of his arms. The incident in the parking lot seems far away right now, a distant and embarrassing memory that everyone keeps dragging up.

“Denial is in Egypt, Peter."

"At least it's warm there."

Ned is silent then, probably looking over his hot mess of a friend and reassessing his social ties. "Dude," he says at last, "I mean this in the best way, but you’re kind of a wreck. Somehow more so than usual. What's the matter with you?”

Peter lifts his head to rest his chin on his wrists. He looks out over the cafeteria miserably. Several groups of kids are staring at him, but they whip back into their huddles when Peter notices them. He sighs. “I just want some straight answers.”

Ned opens his mouth to make the obvious joke about _straight_ answers.

Peter interrupts with, “Eddie never gives them to me.”

Ned opens his mouth again to make the obvious joke about _giving it to you._

“And I just want to know what’s going on," concludes Peter, fixing Ned with an unamused side-eye.

Ned sighs. “You kinda know what’s going on. You know that there are real, honest to god werewolves. That’s pretty cool.”

It is pretty cool, but Peter’s in a funk and he's determined to stay in that funk. He shrugs.

Ned continues, “You know that Flash and Brock know each other. That’s something.”

“Yeah, but...” He doesn’t know _how_ they know each other, or if Flash knows Drake too. He hasn't even seen Drake since that first encounter in the woods. The ambiguity niggles at him. Like a math problem left half-finished. Peter's never been good at leaving things unfinished. Just knowing there's a mystery lingering out there...it makes him restless, anxious even. His knees bounce under the table. The water in his Nalgene forms ripples.

“Look,” Ned says at last. He’s using his best tough-love tone, now. Clearly, he's getting a little tired of the werewolf obsession. “At least you got to see a werewolf. A transformed one, at that. Most people in town only ever hear about them and never see them. You’re lucky.”

Peter nods and sits up, finally. “Yeah, you’re right. I know. I just don’t like an unsolved mystery.” 

“That’s a boldfaced lie. I know for a fact that you’ve seen every single episode of _Buzzfeed Unsolved._ ” Ned shoves his shoulder, making nice even when Peter won't. “Wanna come over tonight and marathon it? Or I could come to yours.”

“Maybe tomorrow. I got take care of something tonight.”

 

\---

 

Peter waits until May is asleep. Then he bundles into his down jacket and snow boots to venture into the woods. He equips himself with a heavy metal flashlight and figures he can use it to defend himself, if he needs to. He sweeps the light from side to side, looking for werewolves between the trees. Each time the beam of light encounters a bush or a strangely shaped shadow, Peter jumps. At one point, he finds bare human foot prints hardened into the crusty snow. These tracks he follows with interest. Several yards ahead, they become canine paw prints.

Half-mad, Peter grins. "Werewolves," he mumbles to himself. They lead straight to the great tree at the center of the forest.

Fresh snow hasn’t fallen since Friday, and the snow on the ground is partially frozen. Each step creaks like a glacier groaning under its own weight. On more than one occasion, Peter’s heel catches pure ice and one leg goes sliding forward while the other remains rooted behind him.

Still, he’s resolved to get to that goddamn tree. The moon is a glowing sliver high in the sky, and the night is dark with clouds. The tree is just a vague shape, rising into the sky. Every now and then, Peter will lift his attention from the icy forest floor to check if he’s going in the right direction. He need not check; the tree pulls him forward like a magnet. Peter has the suspicion he could walk blind into the forest and still be headed straight to the tree.

The forest is deep, and Peter half expects he’ll never make it. Each time Peter lifts his head, the tree seems to be the same distance away.

Until, suddenly, it isn’t.

Something hits Peter hard in the stomach, and his first thought is he’s been attacked by a werewolf. As he falls to the ground, Peter's mind rambles hysterically to the human-turned-wolf prints in the snow. The flashlight clatters out of his hand and skitters across the forest floor. He lays flat on the ground, breathing as quietly as he can, waiting for the beast to strike again.

But it doesn’t. Nothing happens. Peter rises slowly on his hands and knees, feeling along the ground towards his flashlight. When he’s got it again, he sweeps the beam of light upwards and gasps.

It wasn’t a wolf that struck him at all. The illumination of the flashlight finds a wall of tree trunk. So large that Peter had mistaken it for open spaced darkness. If Peter walked up to it and tried to wrap his arms around the width of the trunk, his arms would be splayed into a crucifix. Three of Peter could stand fingertip to fingertip and they wouldn't be able to completely encircle it.

He’s at the tree. He’d run into a tree root, and a large one at that.

Roots as thick as regular tree trunks sprout from the ground and then delve back in. Some of them rise as high as Peter’s waist. He rests his hand over one such root, expecting it to be slicked with frost. As soon as his palm rests against the wood, Peter jerks it back.

The root is warm.

 _You shouldn’t be here,_ something growls behind him. Peter whips around, but the source of the voice is nowhere to be found. His heart picks up a terrible staccato, drumming through his whole body.

 _You shouldn’t be here,_ the voice repeats, closer. Peter swears he can feel its breath brush the back of his neck. _It’s not time._

Peter never should have gone into the woods. This was a bad idea.

He takes off in a dead run the way he came. He feel the voice's presence cling to his spine. He can feel its warmth at his heels. Each shadow seems to be in the shape of a wolf.

Fear gives him startling dexterity; he doesn’t trip over roots or slip on ice like he did during the long trek towards the center of the woods. But he does knock his shoulder against a tree. It knocks the flashlight from his hand, and the beam of light goes skittering into the dense foliage. He keeps running through the dark.

Peter bolts through the trees until his chest seems full of iron, until his legs pump battery acid, until he collapses on the forest floor barely able to haul air into his lungs. He lies there in the snow, trying to hush himself so he can listen for the wolves.

 

\---

 

When his body finally recovers from its sprint, Peter gets a good look around. The great tree—permanently visible from his house—is gone. The trees around him are so tall and dense, Peter can’t even determine where the sky is. He’s got no flashlight. He’s completely engulfed in darkness. Lost.

This was a _very_ bad idea.

Peter is sprawled out on the ground, belly exposed, when he hears a branch snap behind him. He whips around, but the wolf already upon him. It rounds him, and Peter strains to see if it’s Eddie. It _feels_ like Eddie in Peter's bones. But it’s dark, and the wolf is just a large shape.

The wolf doesn’t seem to want to hurt him though. The eyes that glint with moonlight are intent upon him, but the wolf approaches slowly. Whining softly, it flattens its body towards the ground, making itself smaller to meet Peter. It pushes its snout against Peter’s neck. Then it licks Peter’s mouth.

“Blegh,” Peter complains, wiping his face with his sleeve. “Eddie is that—”

The wolf doesn’t pause, doesn’t communicate with Peter as it usually does. It shoves its snout between Peter’s legs, nudging against his genitals. Its tongue lolls out and rubs purposefully against him there. And Peter jumps back with a startled yelp.

“Hey, woah.” Peter’s voice shakes and his spine tingles. He holds out a flat palm to it, and even his fingers tremble.

The werewolf eyes him, the expression in its pupils inscrutable. Then it rounds him again, this time stalking off a few paces to lift its leg and mark a tree. Peter tries to rise up to his feet, but the wolf growls. He stays in place.

Then the wolf catches him by the hood of his coat and drags him backwards. Its teeth scrape the back of Peter’s neck, drooling down his spine. It’s taking Peter back towards the tree, he realizes with a start. Upon the realization, Peter scrambles to anchor himself. He digs his heels into the dirt. He scrapes his palms trying to grasp at icy roots. The wolf continues on, unperturbed.

“Eddie, stop. I don’t—”

As if it heard him, the wolf drops Peter and his head knocks against the frozen ground. Right on the bruise from the parking lot. This is rougher than Eddie has been with Peter. He’s starting to worry that this isn’t Eddie at all. Eddie and the wolf always _talk_ to Peter at least, and this wolf has been completely silent. It doesn’t act like a werewolf at all, it acts like…

Peter blanches.

_It acts like a regular wolf._

Without thinking, Peter springs to his feet and makes a run for it. The wolf snarls and Peter only gets a few bounds away before it pounces on him from behind. Peter is knocked onto his stomach, and this time the weight of the wolf drives his body into the ground. Crushing him. The wolf clamps its teeth lightly over Peter's neck, breathing hotly against his scalp. It curls its paws into the sides of his stomach as it shifts over him, claws curling into his belly.

Not like this. Peter clenches his fingers against the ground and--knowing what’s going to happen, still unable to believe it's about to happen--he sobs. Just once. "No, no, no."

This, somehow, the wolf seems to understand.

“Peter,” the wolf communicates suddenly, clearly startled.  And, yes, it’s them. This wolf is Eddie. Their grip eases up abruptly. It pushes Peter over onto his back with its snout. Its eyes are wide and disbelieving, more human now. “Are you hurt? We didn’t…We’re so sorry.” It nudges its nose over the pulse in his neck, snuffling for injuries. “Did we hurt you?”

“No," Peter says, "I’m not hurt. It's okay. But what just hap—”

“We could have bitten you, Peter,” the wolf interjects. Then it adds, darkly, “Or worse.”  

Peter laughs. He's relieved. In his bones, deep in his marrow, he knows that Eddie could never hurt him. No matter how close they just got. "What could be worse than being bitten by a werewolf?"

The wolf’s demeanor shifts now. Its mouth tightens into a snarl, ears laid back. Hackles rise along its spine. “Did we, or did we not tell you to stay out of the woods.” There’s no uplift in its voice to signal a question. Just a terrible, monotone growl. 

Peter staggers back, as if shot. His skin erupts in a rash of gooseflesh. “I’m sorry, I just—”

The wolf barks, once and loud. Directly in Peter’s face. Peter squeezes his eyes tight against the sudden rage.

“We _told_ you to stay out.”

“But—”

“Of all the stupid, ridiculous, _selfish_ things you could do. Do you know what could have happened? Do you know what we could have—” The wolf interrupts itself with a roar, furious and... _frightened_.

They are frightened. It makes Peter's gut clench.

"Nothing happened," he bites out, eyes stinging.

The wolf's tail tucks as it growls, “Go home _now,_ Peter." Then, quietly, it adds, "Please.”

Ashamed, eyes brimming with tears, Peter does as he’s told.

 

\---

 

When Peter gets home, he’s got tear tracks frozen down along both cheeks. He rubs them off as he mounts the stairs. The sun has risen, but Peter plans to ignore it and go back to bed. He’ll tell May that he’s too sick for school. She’ll believe him.

But when Peter approaches his bed, he’s met with the crumpled _BEHAVE._ note. It has been smoothed out and laid over his pillow. But now the period has been transformed into an exclamation point and it’s been shakily underlined. Twice.

This time, Peter burns it.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: attempted rape, near-bestiality. In this chapter:  
> 1\. As a wolf, Eddie/Venom courts Peter.  
> 2\. Still lupine, they attempt to mate Peter.  
> 3\. Peter refuses, and they stop.
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks for reading. Let me know if my warnings could be better.


	5. Chapter 5

Peter jerks awake from a dream he can only half remember. It returns to him in halting fragments, fading quickly from his memory. It’s a dream of colors and textures: deep browns and soft fur. The sharp, wet edge of teeth against the back of his neck. Hot sweat slicking between Peter’s thighs, and feeling so, so full.

Peter gives himself a shake, takes a shower. A long, hot shower that settles his shaking limbs. Through the door, he tells his aunt that he has a stomachache. When he gets out, he’s flushed. She pats his cheek and her hands are cold.

“You got a test today?” May asks.

“Nope.”

“Big presentation?”

“Not that I know of.”

She pinches his cheek with her knuckles. “Get back into bed, baby.”

May brings him a box of saltines and a cup of lemon honey tea. She also brings him the bag of Flaming Hot Cheetos they were saving for movie night this Friday. So, Peter is pretty sure she knows his stomachache is total bullshit and just doesn’t care.

She’s a good aunt. 

Peter mostly spends the day curled under the duvet, sleeping off his heartache. He gets a few text messages from Ned: _Where are you?_ and _Newsflash: Nothing new. Flash isn’t here._

 _Thanks. Still up for Buzzfeed Unsolved if you are,_ Peter responds. Ned shoots back a thumbs up emoji. Peter stares at it with unfocused eyes until it turns into a yellow smudge. Peter crosses his eyes and it looks almost like a middle finger. He sighs and doesn't feel much better.

He gets a text from May asking what she should bring home for dinner. Peter can’t imagine eating right now so he tells her to get whatever she wants. Then he feels guilty for being curt, so he adds a heart. _Helpful,_ she replies. 

Boredom, true boredom, hits Peter around mid-afternoon when he can no longer sleep. He could try to distract himself from Eddie, maybe get ahead on schoolwork or watch a movie, but instead he feels like twisting the knife.

He draws his laptop into bed with him and drums his fingers against the keys while he waits for it to boot up. Something about researching werewolves feels like an invasion of privacy. Like he's going through Eddie's sock drawer. Nonetheless, as soon as google chrome launches, Peter looks up wolves. He pulls up Wikipedia and skips straight to the “Behavior” section.

It delves immediately into their mating and sexual habits, prickling the hair at the base of Peter’s neck.

With a mixture of fear and excitement, he pulls up an incognito window and googles, “wolf mating habits.” The article he pulls up next informs him that mating season for wolves is January is typically between January and April.

It’s February. Peter’s flush lights hot over his cheeks. He has to close his laptop then, to give himself some space from his embarrassment. He takes a few breaths. Nothing happened that night in the woods. Nothing. Even if…

Peter opens his laptop again, reads a couple lines of Wikipedia, and then closes it again. He forces himself to sleep.

He dreams again. And this is a dream too graphic to try to remember.

\---

 

As promised, Ned comes over to watch ghost hunting on YouTube. Still under the pretense of illness, they curl up in Peter’s room. Ignoring the pretense of illness, they eat the Cheetos together, staining their fingertips bright red. 

Ned has a sixth sense for Peter’s mood and seems to understand that he’s vulnerable today. They watch a few episodes in companionable silence. Ned asks occasionally if Peter’s okay. If he wants to talk. Peter evades both questions.

“Think you’ll be at school tomorrow?” Ned says finally, cutting to the chase.

Peter shakes his head. “I’ve got some stuff to take care of.”

Ned nods, and starts up a video on the Phoenix Lights Phenomenon. Peter falls half-asleep, lulled by easy eeriness of the show and Ned's familiar presence. He dozes next to Ned until he's awakened by a knock at the door.

“Did you order pizza?” Peter asks, sleepily ambling to the door.

“Nope,” Ned says, just as Peter swings open the door to reveal…

“Eddie.” Peter blinks, not quite believing that he’s really standing there on the doorstep. No rabbits. No condescending notes. Just Eddie. Standing there in his carhartt. Looking ashamed as he wrings a wool beanie between his hands.

Eddie Brock. In the flesh, not the fur.

“Peter,” Eddie says from the door step, his voice a low grumble. Behind him, Peter can almost _hear_ Ned’s jaw drop. The antics of the buzzfeed ghost hunters is abruptly muted as Eddie asks, “Can we talk?”

“Uh, yeah, sure.” Peter shoots Ned a look and mouths, _Get out._

 _No way!_ Ned mouths back, rooted to the couch. He curls his fingers into the cushion beneath him. As if Peter will try to forcibly rip him from the couch. As if that's enough resistance to keep him there for the show. 

“Get out,” Peter hisses, thinking desperately of a suitable threat. He jabs a thumb at the burly alpha werewolf behind him. Eddie shifts, clearly able to hear this entire whispered conversation with his lupine hearing. “Get out," Peter repeats, "Or…or I’ll have  _him_  get you out.”

Ned blinks, not at all threatened.

Peter sighs. “I’ll have him throw you out, _and_ I’ll tell you _nothing._ ”

Ned gasps. “You wouldn’t."

“I _would._ Out.”

“Fine, fine,” Ned grumbles. "But fat chance I'm helping you with all your missing work." It's a bluff and they both know it. He slips out the kitchen door.

Once he’s assured they’re suitably alone, Peter swings open the door. He doesn't step aside to let Eddie in. If he wants to talk, they'll do it right here, on the doorstep. With the cold air rushing in and raising a rash of gooseflesh over Peter's bare skin.

Peter crosses his arms over his stomach, holding himself in. “What do you want, Eddie?”

“I wanted to apologize.” Eddie isn’t even _looking_ at Peter. “For Tuesday.”

“It's mating season,” Peter says, living for the look of surprise this spreads over Eddie’s face. (Admittedly, Peter's own face feels warm.) “I looked it up online.”

“We would have _never_ —”

This, it seems, is the breaking point for Peter. He laughs, a strained and hysterical sound. “I’m not upset because you tried to mate with me, Eddie. I’m upset because you _yelled_ at me.”

Eddie takes a literal step backwards, eyes comically wide. “You’re upset because I yelled at you.” He smiles softly, and it’s so condescending Peter’s anger rises in a sharp wave. “Oh, Peter,” he says, extending an arm towards him.

Peter knocks it away, seething. “You made me feel small. I was scared and vulnerable and you—” Peter rubs his nose with his sleeve; it’s starting to drip. “I still feel like I have no idea what’s going on. I don’t _know_ anything about you, not really. It's like...It’s like—”

“We’re a stranger to you,” Eddie finishes, solemn.

And then Peter’s tears really start to fall. It’s as if he’s a sponge that has been swelling with water, soppy and laden with it for weeks. It's as if he's just been wrung out.

Eddie’s eyes widen. “What have I done now?”

“Nothing.” While Peter is embarrassed by his sobbing, he knows it can’t be helped. Once he gets started, there’s no stopping it. “I’m just so relieved you get it.”

Eddie sighs, but doesn’t say anything. Peter’s head is stooped into his palms, gathering the tears between his fingers so Eddie doesn’t see. When he finally stops crying enough to look up, Eddie’s expression is etched with concern.

He extends an arm, and Peter initially thinks he might be aiming for a handshake. But the angle of his arm is too wide against his body. It’s a natural instinct for Peter to step into the hug. Eddie wraps around Peter’s shoulders and tucks his nose into his hair. Exhales.

“I’ll tell you everything. What do you want to know?”

\---

 

It takes a while to coax it out of him, but Peter asks to see where Eddie lives. Though Eddie hesitates, he won’t deny Peter anything. Not today. The walk there, Peter pictures a hovel in the woods. A mansion in the hills. A refurbished cave. It occurs to him that werewolves might live in packs, like real wolves do, and that Peter might be walking willingly into the den of the wolves.

As it turns out, Eddie Brock  _does_ live deep in the woods—even more secluded than May and Peter’s house—but his house is…

It’s…

Well, it’s _average._ It’s a bungalow house like all the houses in town, painted a conservative dark blue. Random piles of books line the walls and tower on each surface. Save the deer skins hanging on the living room wall, there’d be no reason to suspect a werewolf lived here.

Peter runs his fingers over the coarse deer pelt and turns back to Eddie. At the sight of him, Peter smiles. Eddie is leaning against the back wall, arms crossed over his chest. Defensive, unsure if Peter approves, but trying to pass it off as indifference.

“Did you hunt this yourself?” Peter asks. 

Eddie’s head dips once. “Yup. With my teeth.”

Peter laughs, having caught the joke, and Eddie smiles. Big and toothy. He relaxes some and comes to sit on the couch—a threadbare shamble covered in flannel blankets. Eddie pats the space next to him. Peter takes a seat.

“So,” Eddie says, his voice as warm and dark as raw honey, “What do you need to know?”

Peter thinks on this a moment. He has a list of questions as tall as he is, and his mind darts between the possibilities. He's overwhelmed, at first, but his mouth makes the decision for him: “Do you live here alone?” Peter asks.

Eddie’s eyebrows rocket upwards; this isn’t the question he was expecting. But his smile makes Peter glad he started with a softball question. He doesn't want to take advantage of the poor guy. They can get to the thorny matters later.

“Most werewolves prefer to live in colonies. Communes. Packs,” Eddie clarifies, eyes glimmering knowingly at Peter. “But I live alone.”

“Why?”

Eddie shrugs. “The werewolves in this area are _assholes._ ”

“I’ll say,” Peter grumbles with a roll of his eyes. Silence from Eddie and for a tense moment, Peter thinks he’s offended him. Then, a low chuckle rumbles from Eddie’s chest, erupting into a barking laugh and Peter’s laughing too.

When they finally quiet themselves, Peter asks about pack dynamics.

“There are alphas,” Eddie says. “But we sometimes think that’s more a human instinct than a lycan one.” 

Peter nods. There’s that _we_ again, nudging him towards the question he really wants to ask. Even more than he wants to ask about mating, about who they are to each other. Though he itches to ask this question, too, Peter senses an opening. And he takes it.

“You weren’t always a we,” he prompts, as gently as he knows how.

Eddie sighs, but he’s softened because Peter is so soft. “Alright, alright,” he says. “I’ll tell you, but I need a drink in my hand first.”

Peter nods and shifts to the edge of his seat.

 

\---

 

“Two years ago, I was a different person,” Eddie begins. “I was reckless. Well, more reckless. And selfish. Well, more selfish. But I always felt as if I was different. Separate, somehow. I don't know how to explain it. I had only just moved here, too, and I hadn’t heard the rumors about these parts. I didn't know what was out there, waiting for me. How could I have?

“I felt the call to the woods. These woods, the woods around us now. I felt the call, and I answered it.”

He pauses here to look over Peter. The look is so weathered, so understanding that Peter wonders if Eddie knows something he doesn’t.

“I didn’t think about it,” Eddie continues, swilling his whiskey in its glass. “I didn't _need_ to think about it. It was an impulse that didn’t require thinking. I wandered through those woods for hours. Until my legs were dead tired. Until I fell asleep in the mosses and woke up to face... _it._ ”

“The wolf." Peter can scarcely breathe. He feels as if all the air has been crushed out of his lungs.

Eddie nods, smiling as if Peter has done something clever. “I didn’t know about werewolves, I hadn’t the slightest clue they were fucking real. You can imagine my shock. I thought I was going to die right then and there.

“It wasn't until later that I learned there was an entire culture around the turning. Like a bar mitzvah or a quinceañera. Those who were raised in a werewolf family know that the woods call to you, and you answer the call only when you’re ready. It’s a terribly violent, _beautiful_ process. A coming together like...like nothing I've ever experienced before." Eddie sighs here, lost for a moment. He eventually wrests himself from his thoughts and continues. "Not everyone survives the transformation, and even those who do don’t always remain bonded to their wolf. It’s, uh, it’s difficult to explain, Peter.”

Peter shakes his head. “It’s a relationship. Not all relationships survive.”

“We knew you would understand," Eddie hums, fond.

“So, why didn’t you tell me?”

Eddie blinks. “Peter, we thought you’d…” He pauses, as if he needs to confer with himself. “We thought you’d put it together.”

“Put what together?”

Eddie winces, rubs the back of his neck. “I’m sorry we tried to mate with you. In our wolf skin. But we wouldn’t have tried if—”

“It wasn’t mating season,” Peter interrupts. “We’ve already talked about that.”

“Let me finish,” Eddie snaps, a wild biting edge to his tone. He tempers it down as he continues. “I’m sorry we tried to mate with you, but we wouldn’t have tried if we didn’t sense you were our kin. Our kin, Peter. Do you understand?”

Their kin? A werewolf? Peter isn’t a werewolf. He’s never turned. He’s never become the wolf. He’s never felt the…the…

_Oh._

Peter's whole world narrows down to a mute gray, to Eddie's colorless eyes watching him.

“I felt the call,” Peter says, dumb and bewildered. As if he's lost in his own home. Everything he thought was familiar is strange. He looks up to Eddie in a panic. The face that greets him there is calm, weathered again.

“When I was a child,” Peter continues. “I went out to the woods. I felt it. I woke up in a circle of warmth as if...as if..." _A wolf had been there._ "And now…” Peter’s hands clasp over his mouth, as if stopping the words from being spoken will keep them from being true. 

Eddie winces. Peter has the sense that he’s still keeping a secret, perhaps many secrets, but these seem inconsequential in the face of what Peter’s just discovered.

“What do I do, Eddie?”

“I can’t tell you that,” Eddie says. He wraps his warm, broad arm around Peter’s shoulders and that’s a comfort, at least. “You’ll have to decide for yourself.”

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Changing the POV for this chapter.

Eddie Brock hadn’t wanted to move to upstate New York. It was cold, for one, and it wasn’t the graceful hilly metropolis of San Francisco. He had friends in San Francisco. He was editor (in chief!) of his school newspaper. He was dating a bombshell blonde on the honor roll. Eddie Brock was the big man on campus.

But he was also a teenager then. Still under the absolute rule of his father. The move to New York wasn’t an option, it wasn’t even compulsory; it was God’s law.

God, in this scenario, was Carl Brock. Eddie's father. A man who struck such an uncanny resemblance to his son, that even strangers would make note of it. Eddie hated him, hated his own face for looking like him. Carl Brock was a mean drunk, but that wasn’t saying much considering what the guy was like sober.

So, Eddie made himself scarce whenever his father was home. Whenever he could help it.

Despite the dominion of Carl Brock, moving to upstate New York had its small blessings despite. That’s what the woods were good for: disappearing for hours and hours without a trace. On more than one occasion, Carl Brock went out looking for his son, but never once found him. Eddie could always hear him crash through the brush, his heavy panting echoing. Eddie hid under logs, behind trees, and breathed through his mouth so his father couldn't find him. Perfectly still as if he belonged there.

Looking back on it, Eddie will wonder if his inability to go home was why the wolves cried for him. If this is why he was chosen. Do the wolves prefer someone who is incomplete the way they are incomplete? 

 _Don’t be absurd,_ the wolf always soothes, but it’s not really answering the question, is it?

 

\---

 

When they were bonded, when Eddie was turned, all the secrets that the wolf had harbored became his own. All the secrets and all the memories. Stalking and bringing down an elk with a the pack. Watching another wolf bond with a human. Eventually being ousted from the pack and forced into a life of solitude. 

Eddie didn’t make much of the wanderings of this strange, symbiotic creature. But one memory, one night in the long string of lonely nights…this memory sparkles with particular clarity.

Eddie often dreams of it. Dreams of it until the wolf's longing yawns into his own. They dream of it now.

In the dream, there is no Eddie, no concept or glimmer of Eddie on the horizon. It is just the wolf. Alone. Incomplete without a human host. Its body isn’t quite corporeal, doesn’t quite experience the world as a human might. And the loneliness...it's all consuming, carves them out so that they are a hollow vessel for wanting.

The wolf floats through the woods, calling for a bond-mate.

A boy answers. Human, perfect, real. He comes walking through the woods in a red fleece jacket. At first, the sheer smell of the boy fills the wolf with relief; there’s someone out there for it. It belongs to someone and someone belongs to it.

But the wolf can’t enjoy its find for long, there’s a problem with this potential bond-mate:

He’s a small boy. Very small. A cub. Too young to turn. Disappointment poisons the scent, scoops the wolf empty again. It won’t bond today. Can't. On instinct, the wolf tilts back its head and pours a howl into the sky.

Other unbonded wolves pick up the scent of a compatible human. If they try to bond with the boy—which some of them certainly would if given the opportunity—there's no way the boy would survive the turning. A turning would rip a boy of that size like that apart.

But the boy doesn’t belong to them. He belongs to the wolf. 

The wolf stalks the boy through the woods to ward off any challengers. It avoids contact with the small boy in red, avoids his detection. Each time the boy turns to see if he's being followed, the wolf evaporates into the mist. Even as he ventures deeper and deeper into the woods, into the thick of the wolves, it stays close to protect him.

And when the boy lies down to sleep in the grass, the wolf curls around him to ward off the cold...and other predators. 

This memory is recalled with such tenderness that it wells tears in the wolf’s eyes. There is a sense of deep compatibility. Stronger and more mysterious than a magnetic force. A feeling of near-completeness. The wolf will become the same as him, and they will be complete together. 

The wolf will wait. It must. 

\---

 

Except, of course, that it didn’t. The wolf found Eddie first and turned Eddie first. But now they’ve found the boy again, grown old. Old enough to turn.

 

\---

 

Eddie awakes from the dream with a start. His blood rushes through his veins, pumping the excess to his temples. He’s in a near panic, his whole body thrumming. 

Next to him, Peter is asleep, his face peacefully crushed into the couch cushion. His arms are twined around one of Eddie’s, clutching his elbow to his chest. They dozed off while watching a movie. The menu screen for the DVD repeats itself on Eddie’s tv set.

 _Underworld._ It was Peter’s idea.

As if his hand doesn't belong to him, Eddie pushes the fringe of hair from Peter’s forehead. He’s warm to the touch, skin a smooth silk beneath Eddie's rough fingertips. At the contact, Peter’s mouth shifts. Pink and easy. Sweet, like.

A walk. Eddie needs a walk. 

Wincing, Eddie carefully extracts his arm from Peter’s grasp. He doesn’t bother with boots or a coat; he doesn’t need them. The cold frost feels good, bracing under his sweating feet. He’s only a few paces out the door when they—the wolf and him—smell another other werewolf. An interloper on their territory.

 _Drake,_ the wolf supplies, curling Eddie’s lip.  _He's here._

Knowing he’s been sensed, Drake crawls out from the brush. He walks a strange halting gait on three limbs before straightening up onto two. He sniffs the air and smiles. Eddie’s hackles raise, a prickle of inky blackness from his spine.

 _I don’t trust him,_ the wolf reminds Eddie. All Eddie can do is nod, attention searing into Drake. Even at this distance they can smell his blood, hear his heartbeat. The wolf wants to  _make it stop,_ but Eddie waits.

“How was your rut, Eddie?” Drake asks, his eyes on the house. On the house where Peter is. Inside. Sleeping. Vulnerable. “Personally, I couldn’t find what I was looking for.”

The wolf growls, deep and dark in Eddie’s chest. _Kill him,_ its instinct screams at Eddie, insistent. _Rip his spine out from his throat and pick out the meat along his vertebrae. Tender, delicious, chewy._

“I think the last time you came sniffing your nose around here, I showed you where you can stuff that nose,” Eddie says coolly. Drake can certainly smell his anxiety, but Eddie has learned that posturing can be every bit as convincing as scent.

_Bring the carcass home to Peter. To our mate._

“I’m hurt,” Drake lays a hand across his own chest. He’s good at that; refined gestures that ring anthropoid. Playing at humanoid. He’s incredibly charming to humans, convincing too.

Eddie thinks of Peter’s classmate, that Flash boy. The one that follows Drake around like a puppy. The one that threatened Peter. The wolf’s growl in his chest raises a pitch, exposing some of his nerves.

“I’m just checking on the progress of things, Eddie,” Drake continues, scenting the air again. He frowns then, losing some of his human charm. His eyes are cold on Eddie’s. “He isn’t turned? He’s still…” The frown curls up at the edges, distorting his expression. “...human?”

Eddie looks away, scowling. A mistake. Drake misreads it as a deferential gesture and advances towards the house. Eddie's house.

“Well,” Drake reasons, tone rich with bad intentions. “Maybe I can _help_ him turn like I helped—”

The wolf overtakes Eddie before he can fully process his rage, enveloping him in claws and teeth. They’re on Drake while he’s still mid-transformation. His reflexes are not as quick as Eddie’s.

Drake is bonded with an older wolf, ancient and conniving, but slow.

Eddie uses this to his advantage and rips out a chunk of Drake’s human shoulder. Stripping the meat clear from the bone. The wolf holds the shredded flesh in its maw, dripping blood from its jowls so Drake can see what they took from him.

Once they have Drake’s attention, the wolf snaps its head from side to side, demonstrating how they’d break Drake’s spine if he gets close enough.

Drake hesitates. He’s bleeding profusely, his fur already matted along his left side. An injury sustained outside of lupine transformation takes significantly longer to heal, and Drake is missing a gargantuan chunk of his shoulder.

Eddie and the wolf chew Drake's shoulder. The squelch of his flesh between their teeth rings out in the quiet air. They swallow.

Drake is a smart man, bonded with a smart wolf. Their eyes flicker to the house, but they don’t advance. They run.

 _You can’t protect him forever,_ Eddie’s wolf thinks after Drake has disappeared. _He would be able to protect himself if he turned._

“I don’t see how that’s possible. We'll never turn him. I'd never let it happen.” Eddie growls aloud, pivoting back towards the house.

And then there’s Peter, standing right outside the door wrapped in a blanket. His eyes aren’t on Eddie. He’s fixated on the splatter of blood leading to the brush, where Drake ran away. The pleasant ( _delicious_ ) flush has leaked from his face. Peter’s is pale, very pale.

Eddie transforms instantly. He sucks the blood from his teeth before he asks, “How much did you see?”

Peter tightens the knit blanket around him. “I heard growling. So, I came out.”

“Everything is fine, Peter. Let's go back inside.” Eddie takes a few steps towards him.

It’s only then that Peter looks at Eddie. A frown darkens his sweet face. “He said he could help me?”

Eddie shakes his head. “You don’t want his help.”

Wrong move.

Peter shifts on his feet, considering this. “Man," he says, rubbing a hand over his face. "I thought, I really thought we were past all the secrets. I thought…” He trails off, shakes his head. There’s a deep flush spreading over his cheeks and the nape of his neck. It smells wonderful, but spells trouble for Eddie.

“Peter,” Eddie starts, reaching out. 

But Peter steps back towards the house, and Eddie can see that he’s shoving his feet into his shoes and looking for his jacket. Leaving. Eddie's panic ratchets up. It's only a matter of time before he leaves and never comes back.

The wolf is whining in Eddie’s head, making audible his anxiety about Peter leaving. _He can’t go, he just can’t,_ the wolf insists to Eddie. _If he goes—_

“Peter,” Eddie says again, a tinge of the wolf in his tone. “He’s not safe. Drake. He—”

“Whatever, Eddie,” Peter mumbles. He’s in his coat. He’s going to leave. “Maybe we can talk later. May’s probably looking for me.”

 _Keep him here. Lock him here. Force him. Don’t let him go!_  

“I have a phone. You could call her,” Eddie suggests, but it sounds pathetic even to him.

With his back to Eddie, Peter pauses. Eddie can smell the spike of irritation that rises off of him, even as his shoulders sink, even as he sighs. “You wanna tell me what Drake meant when he said he could help me?”

Eddie shakes his head. "He can't help you."

The heat at Peter's neck blooms scarlet. Anger now, instead of embarrassment. "What about what I heard you say. You'd never let anyone turn me? What if I  _wanted_ to be turned, Eddie?"

_Eddie, please!_

Eddie is silent.

Peter nods and zips up his coat. “I’m not pissed off or anything, Eddie. I just need some space. And, uh…” He turns then, and Eddie flinches when he sees his eyes are sparkling with tears. Again. Fuck. “I don't belong to you. I hope you know that.” 

Like all fragile things, when Peter breaks, he is sharp.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, I don't want anybody coming into the comments accusing Eddie's dream/memory of being pedophilic. Nobody is describing a sexual connection between a wolf and a child. Compatibility need not be romantic or sexual. I'm not doing this song and dance today.
> 
> To the rest of you, thanks for reading. We should be approaching an ending soon.


End file.
